Many of my friends who are interested in working from home ask me what it’s like to be a blogger and a stay-at-home-mom. Sometimes it’s hard to explain, so I thought it best to give a real-life example of what I do in a day when I have to juggle 3 kids, volunteering, and blogging plus a husband who’s out of town on business. Lucky for me, Caribou Coffee, who sponsored this post, offered to let me sample their new Crafted Press coffee as part of my busy day!

A Day in My Life: #12hrAdventure

6:30 – 8:00 a.m.

On days like today when my husband travels, my morning usually start off with a bang. All three kids get up and run into my room (I’m working on getting up before them, but Downton Abbey tricked me into staying up way too late yet again!). 🙂

Then we rush around getting the girls ready for school. While most people are still on summer break right now, we attend a year-round school that started back on July 13^th. On the way to school I try to convince my 5-year-old that Kindergarten is fun (she’s super nervous about it because she’s extremely shy!).

8:00 – 10:00 a.m.

Carpool ends then my little guy and I head back home to finish getting ready for our day. He watches an episode of Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood while I catch up on a few emails and check my blog statistics.

10:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.

We head out for a morning of bounce-house fun with moms from my stay-at-home-moms group. We both had a blast!

12:30 p.m. – I glance at my email (on my phone) before heading out of the restaurant. I see a note from my daughter’s teaching saying we forgot to put her homework folder in her backpack. :/ Yikes!

12:30 – 1:45 p.m. – Rush back home, pick up the homework folder, then take it to school so she doesn’t lose points for not turning it in!

1:45 – 2:45 p.m. – Wrestle little dude down for a late nap (usually around 1) and sit down for 25 minutes to work on a new blog post.

2:45 – 3:45 p.m. – Head out the door to pick up my girls. Get through carpool and head back home to drop them off with the sitter (who showed up at 3 to keep little dude company while he napped & help me with dinnertime since I knew I’d be super busy today!). The girls are excited for the sitter to be playing with them for a couple hours. They love her and she’s starting a new job on Monday. Great for her, but sad for us! 🙁

3:45 – 4:30 p.m. – Watch the girls put on a hula hoop show for me. They are both so good at it – I’m trying to practice, but can only get the hoop around once or twice before it falls each time. Time my 7 year old doing it & get to 6 minutes before her brother kicks the hula hoop to the ground. Who knows how long she would have gone!

4:30 – 6:30 p.m. Give the sitter instructions for the next couple of hours and get the girls set up to do their homework. Head out the door to meet a lady from a local church who has donations for Backpack Buddies (the non-profit I’m president of – we send food-filled backpacks home with children from food insecure households over the weekend when they might not have regular meals available to them).

We’re meeting in the parking lot of a nearby open-air shopping complex, and since I got there a bit early, I grab a quick coffee pick-me-up at !

After an already full day with the prospect of a busy few hours ahead of me, I am thankful for the extra boost of energy! I grab by coffee and take a few sips just as the church lady arrives.

This was my first time trying out their Crafted Press coffee, and I loved it immediately! I like drinks that are ever so lightly sweetened, and the plain version of the Crafted Press coffee that has just the right amount of sweetness for me.

If you’re not familiar with drink, it’s bold coffee they’ve cold steeped for 12 hours blended with a bit of milk and a touch of sugar for a perfect pick me up.

We load the donations in the back of my van. They collected so much food at their food drive. I am so grateful we have community support like this for our program.

6:30 – 8:30 p.m. – Arrive back home to a singing & dancing skit the kids made up for me while I was gone. After the show, we head upstairs to bed. I sing three songs and tell two stories to my little guy. Then lay down for a while with my girls, accidentally falling asleep in the process!

8:30 – 10:00 p.m. – Head downstairs to clean up after the day, pack lunches, send emails, and start writing this blog post! Get about half way done, then realize I’m completely exhausted from my day. I resist the urge to watch another episode of Downton Abbey and head to bed early, vowing to get up early to work some more.

What Will Your #12hrAdventure Be? 

That’s it! Is it what you thought? I’m looking at my schedule for tomorrow and realize it’s completely different. Then the day after that is completely different from the two previous days. When I have some time, I’ll chronicle a few more days to give you a completely picture of my “typical” blogging days where anything goes and a little bit of work gets done!

Night time is usually my fallback work time when doing work during naptimes (that were delayed like today) or I can’t arrange for a sitter to help out. I love my work, and I love my kids. I wouldn’t have this any other way! If I wasn’t so tired, I probably would have stayed up later tonight to finish this post, but I’m beat! Hubby usually does most of the bedtime routine, so I have that time to clean up and set up my work for the evening. Not when he’s out of town! I’m barely holding on for the ride on days like this. 🙂

I really appreciate offering to work with me on this post. The late afternoon pick me up was exactly what I needed to make it through the tail end of my day!

My 12-hour adventure ended up being a 15+ hour adventure. What would a glimpse into your day be like? If you’d like to try out Caribou Coffee’s Crafted Press for yourself, you can .

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Caribou Coffee.